Monday, April 11, 2011

Hart raises the fundamental question for America: are we "a society, a community, or whether we are a collection of individuals inhabiting the same geographical space"? Sadly, I'm thinking the latter. Is there really any such thing as a shared "idea of America" anymore in this fractured and belligerent country? And if we are, as I suspect, no longer anything but "a collection of individuals inhabiting the same geographical space," what does that imply for the future of the United States, a country that exists, after all, only on the basis of a citizenry that universally accepts those famous "propositions" we all got drilled into our heads in Civics class when we were kids. (do they even bother to teach "Civics" or anything similar anymore?)